WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue XIII, 31 March 1894, Page 296

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

To persevere in one’s duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline. There are many wrong ways in doing a right thing, but there is no right way of doing a wrong thing.

There is no spiritual arithmetic by which you can bring together any number of half Christians and make a whole one. The best way to convince doubters is not to argue with them, but to labour and pray for their salvation. Love wins where logic fails. One of the illustrations is that the presenth >ur is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned rightly until he knows that everyday is doomsday. Nightly test and daily bread, the ordinary use of our limbs and senses and understanding, are gifts which admit of no comparison with any other ; yet because almost every man we meet possesses these we leave them out of our enumeration of blessings. Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be

trusted with unlimited power ; for, whatever qualifications he may have evinced to entitle him to the possession of so dangerous a privi lege, yet, when possessed, others can no longer answer for him, because he can no longer answer for himself. Marriage in Siam. —A. declaration of marriage in Siam is simpler even than it used to be in Scotland. You a«k a lady to marry you by simply offering her a flower or taking a light from a cigaiette if it happens to be in her mouth, and your family and the bi ide’s family have to put up at least SI,OOO apiece for a dowi y. The principal impediment in the way of marriage is that each year is named after an animal, and only certain animals are allowed to intermarry. For instance, a person born in the year of the rat cannot marry with a person born in the year of the dog, or a person born in the year of the cow with a person born in the year of the tiger, and there are similar embarges about months and days.

Oiling the Voice —The voice of singers need an occasional ‘oiling,’ and some peculiar remedies have been in vogue among singers which it is interesting to know. When Gallmeyer, the famous soubrette, visited this countiy, she confessed that she treated her throat before each performance to a good rubbing with rum and glycerine. This statement led to further investigations in this line, with the following result :—Wachtel used the yoke of an egg with sugar. Other vocal stars drank beer, champagne, soda water or punch. Walter, the tenor, drinks cold coffee without cream and Geistinger relies on a glass of grog. Zelia Trebelli, the famous contralto, who died not long ago, always drank lemonade before she went on the stage. Some singers who are passionate smokers refrain from smoking on the days on which they are to sing, while a number of cantatiices believe that their voices are vastly improved by the smoking of a cigarette just before the curtain rises.

Light Produces Sound.—One of the most wonderful discoveries in science that has been made within the last year or two is the fact that a beam of light produces sound. According to Milling, a beam of sunlight is thrown through a lens on a glass vessel that contains lamp black, coloured silk or worsted, or other substances. A disk, having slits or openings cut in it, is made to revolve swiftly in this beam of light so as to cut it up, thus making alternate flashes of light and shadow. On putting the ear f.o the glass vessel strange sounds are heard so long as the Hashing beam is falling on the vessel. Recently a more wonderful discovery has been made. A beamof sunlight is caused to pass through a prism so as to produce what is called solar spectrum or rainbow. The disk is turned and the coloured light of the rainbow is made to break through it. Now place the ear to the vessel containing the silk, wool, or other material. As the coloured lights of the spectrum fall upon it, sounds will be given by different parts of ths spectrum. For instance, if the vessel contains red worsted, and the green light flashes upon it, loud sounds will be given. Green silk gives sound best in red light. Every kind of material gives more or less sound in different colours, and utters no sound in others.

Laughter as a Tonic. —Laugh when and while you can ; fun is sometimes as beneficial as physic, and much more agreeable. I actually believe that your laughing doctor does more good than his medicines in a multitude of instances. A sad faced, dyspeptic looking physician, whose presence in the sick room conjures up visions of funeral wreaths, and crape on the door, has missed his calling, no matter how crammed with * look learning ’ he may be. Why dwell on the melancholy phases of life 1 Avoid the falling leaf order of conversation ; talk of weddings instead of funerals. It isn't necessary to be continually reminding those with whom you come in contact that there is sin and wickedness in the world, and that are fated to die. They know that alieady ; they have also found out that this woild is not floating about in milk and honey, but at the same time do not believe everything is baptized in vinegar. Try not to complain of the inevitable ills of life, physical and incidental. I know a man who makes every one in his house miserable every time he misses a street car. Another is stesped in gloom whenever it rains. Unnecessary com plaineis and groaners—what an innumerable host they are 1 (io where you may, the chronic • kickers ’ are there before you. They kick at ami about everybody and everything but themselves, and pretty nearly everybody has a laudable ambition to kick them.